photos pending!

It was a long, complicated process, but I went to the campus branch of Daegu Bank and managed to do four things:

1. I found out why my bank book didn't work. It's because I don't have my alien registration card yet. Absolutely everything in my life depends on having that damn card. All things will run more smoothly once I've been officially entered into the database of the Korean version of the Swiss police des étrangers. Until then, if I want to withdraw cash, I have no choice but to visit the bank teller, like a Dickensian beggar, to ask permission to have my own money. Humiliating.

2. I managed to send a sum of money to my buddy Tom, to whom I owe the price of a plane ticket (the very ticket that got me to Korea this past April and May).

3. I managed to pull out W200,000 in cash as pocket money for my own use.

4. I finally managed to send $1300 to my US-based PNC bank account. The balance on that account is below zero right now, thanks to a series of automatic withdrawals, but the $1300 will be in the account by Tuesday, Virginia time. Thus begins my financial rehabilitation: I'll be able to start paying off various debts. Luckily, many of these debts are one-time-only, not revolving debt. Once they're gone, they're gone, and my budgetary picture will improve immediately. How I look forward to the day when I'm in a comfortable financial position! Right now, if I were to speculate, I'd say that that day is about a year away.

So I celebrated Chuseok early by immoderately buying myself 2 boxes of fried-chicken fingers. It still freaks me out to think that chickens somehow evolved fingers, but I'm happy to eat ornithoid phalanges as long as they're juicy and good. As it turned out, one box of appendages was enough to kick my ass, so I'll be saving the second box for tomorrow's dinner.

To top it all off, today's two intermediate-level classes went really well. My students were very much on task. Things can't get much better than they have been today. So, tonight: sleep, wake up, teach a 9AM class, grade a pile of quizzes, get my mandatory doctor checkup done, then... a five-day vacation! I feel as if I'm cheating, as if I somehow don't deserve this. I'm sure that feeling will fade, though.

Photos of fried chicken, and of my satisfied face, are pending. Stay tuned.


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